England captain and Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane claimed the 2026 Ballon d’Or on Monday night, ending a quarter-century wait for an English winner of football’s most prestigious individual award.
The 33-year-old received the golden ball at a ceremony held at the London Palladium, finishing ahead of Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappé and Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal in the voting by international journalists. Kane is the fifth Englishman to win the prize, following Stanley Matthews (1956), Bobby Charlton (1966), Kevin Keegan (1978 and 1979), and Michael Owen (2001). He is also the first Bayern Munich player to take the honour since Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in 1981.
Kane’s victory capped a record-breaking season in which he scored 73 goals across 65 matches for club and country. At Bayern he netted 61 times in all competitions, including 36 in the Bundesliga (enough for a third consecutive league top-scorer title), 14 in the Champions League, and 10 in the German Cup. Those figures helped the Bavarian side secure a domestic double of the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal, plus the Super Cup, and set a new club record for goals in a single campaign.
For England, Kane captained the side to a third-place finish at the 2026 World Cup; the nation’s best result since lifting the trophy in 1966. He scored six times at the tournament, moving past Gary Lineker to become England’s all-time leading World Cup goalscorer, and contributed further goals in the broader qualifying and competitive window.
The win came despite Bayern’s exit in the Champions League semi-finals and England’s elimination in the World Cup last four. Kane also collected the Gerd Müller Trophy as the season’s outstanding striker for his prolific scoring.
Alexia Putellas of Barcelona and Spain won the women’s Ballon d’Or for a third time on the same evening. The 2026 ceremony marked the 70th edition of the awards and the first time the gala was staged in London.
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